Daily Devotion:

Title: Ice, Milk, Eggs and Apples

Date: June 03, 2013

My grandmother remembered the iceman leading his horse and wagon down the city streets, delivering ice for iceboxes. I remember our milkman delivering fresh half-gallons with the cream on top, leaving bottles inside the wood-insulated, metal-covered box on our back steps.

Recently an egg-woman delivered a dozen brown eggs to our doorstep, collected her two dollars and took the empty egg cartons with her. An apple seller arrived one morning unannounced and unknown, and offered bushels, half- bushels, pecks and cider. "Fresh picked and pressed," he said. And they were. His worn-down truck and threadbare pants bespoke a hard-luck life, so we filled our autumn kitchen with the smell of apple pies baking, and sweet cider sipping.

Those olden day ways of peddling fruit or eggs on the streets help some to earn their keep, and keep their pride. It is industry or hunger that drives these modern merchants, and not a vague yearning for a nostalgic past. 

God builds human beings for work and work grants us self-respect. Genesis describes how we eat by the sweat of our backs and the labors of our hands. Oh God, give us work.

Let's Pray:  Dear God, in these hard times, give work to the unemployed, help them find jobs, and help others create jobs so that we all might have a chance to earn our daily eggs and apples at a livable wage. And God, bless those who can no longer work. Amen.

Here’s a Thought: We are made to work. Give us jobs, O God. Give us work.